Small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) will enhance small boat operations and is a solution the U.S. Coast Guard needs to increase its effectiveness and efficiency.
The Coast Guard is a unique mesh between a traditional armed service, law enforcement agency, and public safety organization, responsible for 11 missions. These responsibilities are the result of a series of consolidations with organizations that historically fulfilled each mission independently. Today, the Coast Guard must accomplish all of these missions while also facing the challenges of manpower and asset shortages stemming from the current climate of fiscal instability.
Although the Coast Guard has overcome manpower shortages through increased automation of its vessels and aircraft, the asset shortage remains a challenge. This can be seen at multiple air stations around the country during periods of high case loads. After multiple crews have flown past their flight time limits, or unexpected maintenance is required, there are case requests—even for search and rescue (SAR)—which cannot be met because there are not enough assets or personnel available. Some of this can be attributed to the effects of instituting modern risk assessment models, procedures nonexistent in the days of “you don’t have to come back.” However, much of it cannot be explained that simply, but it all contributes to the reality that currently exists for those that may be in peril upon the sea.
When compared with its four sister military services, and even other agencies inside the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard has invested few resources into advancing technology used at the field level. With cutters built in the 1960s still in use and a lack of major updates to technology, even Bernard C. Webber and the crew that participated in the infamous S.S. Pendleton rescue probably could rejoin the ranks of our modern service very quickly. The Coast Guard currently is attempting to update its assets with modern technology, and the most recent cutters to slide out of the shipyards do show that this is a priority. But other areas, specifically unmanned aircraft, show little progress. Currently, the Coast Guard is in the first stages of developing a UAS program for air stations and large cutters, such as the National Security Cutter and future Offshore Patrol Cutter. Occasionally, the Coast Guard also uses UAS in an agreement with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). However, this agreement has deep restrictions that limit the support to only when a spare UAS is available, since CBP missions take a priority.
The largest hurdle to implementing an organic unmanned aircraft program is financial. Research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) is an expensive and time consuming process. The U.S. Navy spent $425.2 million for RDT&E of the MQ-8 Fire Scout program between FY2001 and FY2009. This is a budget that the Coast Guard cannot expect. In the 2015 budget, the Coast Guard aviation program was allotted $68 million for all recapitalization and enhancement initiatives, including only $17,947 for RDT&E programs. Meanwhile, in the absence of UASs, the operational and tactical advantages that they could provide will continue to be nonexistent.
Being the smallest of the armed services, fiscal shortfalls are a reality the. Coast Guard always has faced, and likely always will. However, regardless of the budget, it must fulfill its mandated missions, making fiscal efficiency and responsibility a priority. Aircraft are some of the most expensive assets employed, with 211 currently in service. In FY2014, Coast Guard aviation logged over 109,000 total hours, which included training and maintenance, as well as operational flights in support of its 11 missions. Search and rescue is just one of these missions. It has been carried out in by manned aviation platforms for nearly the last 100 years, with 2016 marking the centennial anniversary of Coast Guard aviation. Manned platforms, when used in the SAR role, are effective at conducting long-range patrols and search patterns at midlevel altitudes covering wide areas. The benefits of these platforms can best be seen in the major rescue events of the recent past. However, due to their operating expense, using them in response to smaller events can be inefficient. Some of these events would include uncorrelated maydays, especially those likely to be a false distress. Between 2003 and 2012, the Coast Guard suspects that there were 16,735 false distress calls, and the yearly averages are growing. Thousands of hours have been spent flying on these cases, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars, and time that potentially could have been spent on legitimate cases.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s fleet of small boats also is costly to operate. The 540 25-foot Defender-class response boat small (RB-S), and the 175 45-foot response boat medium (RB-M) are the primary response and patrol assets used throughout the United States at nearly every small boat station. While boats are not as expensive as aircraft individually, the higher quantity and per-asset usage make them expensive collectively.
A Small but Effective Solution
No one solution could resolve all of these challenges, instead multiple cost-effective solutions should be developed. One of these solutions should be a small UAS (sUAS) that would deploy from 25-foot and 45-foot response boats. This would give operators at the smallest field level assets, enhanced situational awareness, and increased operational ranges. Launching a sUAS from a small boat could also provide the SAR coordinator information that would help in determining the case’s legitimacy, and whether a manned aircraft should be launched. Information such as the quantity of vessels and their operations in the suspected area would be vital in the decision to allocate more assets to the case.
A sUAS could be cheaply acquired and deployed to small boat units across the country, especially if commercial-off-the-shelf systems were used. A generic system already is a proven and capable system used by private citizens and commercial companies, with the manufacturer selling over 100,000 units worldwide in 2015. This system currently is commercially available for $999 out of the box with the controller and two batteries. Additional systems such as two spare batteries, a waterproof case, and a device to be used as a visual display would cost $760.52. Total, the entire system would cost $1,759.52.
The system includes a stabilized camera that can take still images and record footage directly to a memory card on the aircraft. The controller is able to receive and display real-time footage and flight data from the sUAS, assign waypoints, and select between different flight modes. There are four main flight modes: Follow Me, where the sUAS follows the controller’s location as it travels; Point of Interest, where a GPS waypoint can be created on the controller and the sUAS will circle it; Return to Home, where the UA returns to its takeoff point at a preselected altitude; and regular flight mode, where the sUAS is manually controlled without any restrictions. All of these flight modes, including automatic takeoff and automatic landing are available with the push of a button on the visual display.
Currently, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules state that sUAS are able to operate in Class G airspace (usually below 1,200 feet above ground level) if necessary without air traffic control approval, but specifically the sUAS should operate below 400 feet and be within line of sight from the controller. This rule would not be a factor to maritime operations, as the mostly flat landscape of the water gives a far line of sight and operating less than 400 feet above ground level would be necessary to avoid interfering with manned aviation assets.
The training required to qualify an operator would be both short and inexpensive when compared to the in-depth flight training required to fly larger UAS or manned aircraft. Small unmanned aerial systems have an easy learning curve and can be picked up and flown by a novice because of their advanced flight sensors. The generic sUAS includes GPS and GLONASS sensors giving it a minimum of 36 satellites around the world to lock onto, as well as a vision positioning system that detects altitude and image changes on the ground, making movements and hovers extremely stable. The system also includes a simulator on the controller that would be used for basic flight training. A standard qualification program would be employed to provide organic unit based training by other qualified operators. This program would be similar to the other qualification programs that require training at field level units such as the existing boat crewman, coxswain, or air crewman programs.
The sUAS would be launched at the beginning of a small boat patrol by two crewmen, one holding the legs of the aircraft, and the other operating the controller. This would be the same method used during recovery. Once the aircraft is launched, only one crew member is required for operation, although another could be employed as an observer. The sUAS could be operated while the operator is either on deck, or inside the cabin, depending on signal strength.
The sUAS would be flown 200–400 feet to provide the boat crew increased situational awareness on vessel population density, on-scene weather conditions, and other data. An RB-S and an RB-M both have a visual range to the horizon of about 4 miles, increasing the height of observation to 400 feet would give a visual range of about 34 miles. While the range to the horizon is greater than the effective range that would allow a crew member to spot an object in the water, there is still a 750 percent increase in visible range, so it can be assumed that there is about the same percentage of increase in effective range as well. This is the modern day equivalent of having a lookout positioned on a 400-foot mast, but instead of information having to be relayed verbally, the coxswain has direct access to the real time feed.
This information additionally could be reported to the responsible SAR coordinator to provide operational awareness that could be drawn upon in the event of a SAR case. Once a SAR case is initiated, the sUAS could be launched again to fly search patterns and provide situational awareness. It could either be flown ahead, behind, or parallel to the launching asset. This would dramatically increase the RB-S or RB-M’s search area, saving fuel and decreasing the time spent searching. This capability would directly lead to decreased search times, increased probability of locating survivors, and increased chances of survival. By deploying a sUAS, fewer manned assets would need to be involved in a case, saving resources for future needs. Additionally, in the future sensors could be added to the sUAS, such as a frorward-looking infra-red camera, that would aid searching in low light or adverse weather conditions.
The U.S. Coast Guard needs to embrace evolving technology and strategically employ new resources at the field level. Small UASs are a great example of a type of technology that has exponential cost cutting and life saving potential. It is one of the needed solutions that can alleviate the Coast Guard’s manpower and asset shortage by instantly giving the entire small boat fleet a flexible force multiplier. It has been 113 years since members of the Kill Devil Hills Lifesaving Station first saw the technology of the future, aviation, which changed the Service and its SAR response. Today, that technology lies in small unmanned systems that have nearly unlimited potential to decisively enhance small boat operations of the future.
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